SEATTLE – ”It’s fun to have Nicky P on the mound,” Alex Cora said before Nick Pivetta made his season debut on Friday night.

Indeed, Pivetta was nearly untouchable in his first start; over six innings, he held the Mariners to three hits, a solo home run, struck out 10, and didn’t issue a walk.

Unfortunately, the performance wasn’t enough to keep the Mariners from shutting the Sox out 1-0, for which he took the loss.

In spite of home-plate umpire David Rackley putting the squeeze on the bottom of the strike zone, Pivetta dominated. Armed with a four-pitch mix (sweeper, four-seam fastball, cutter, curveball), he held the Mariners to two hits through four frames. Even Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, who homered off him twice in a July contest last year, had no answer for the Sox starter.

Unfortunately, Pivetta received little help from his lineup, who had no answer to George Kirby and were without Rafael Devers, a late scratch from the lineup due to left-shoulder soreness. The Mariners starter looked unsteady in the top of the first, issuing a leadoff walk to Jarren Duran and a one-out walk to Masataka Yoshida. Duran quickly stole second, making him the first Red Sox player to swipe multiple bags within the first two games of the season since Xander Bogaerts in 2017.

But when Boston stranded the pair, Kirby settled in, and the game became a good old-fashioned pitcher’s duel. Though the Sox drove his pitch count to 48 after three, his confidence built as he worked deeper into the game without incurring any damage. He set the visitors down 1-2-3 in the second, fourth, and fifth frames. Until the seventh, they only had Tyler O’Neill’s two-out single to their name.

Thanks to the pitch clock and the almost-complete lack of offense, the game was into the sixth inning after about 75 minutes and done after 2:24.

The blanking continued until the bottom of the sixth. After Pivetta struck out the leadoff batter, J.P. Crawford skied a cutter just inside the right-field foul pole for a solo home run. Pivetta quickly recovered to strike out the following two batters, taking his punch-out count into double digits.

Pivetta didn’t get double-digit strikeouts once in the first half last season, but one of his four such contests after the All-Star break was in Seattle. According to Stathead, he’s the fourth pitcher in franchise history to put up double-digit strikeouts without walking a batter within the team’s first six games of the season, joining Roger Clemens (1991), Dave Morehead (1965), and Dutch Leonard (1917).

After three consecutive 1-2-3 innings, Ceddanne Rafaela finally chased Kirby out of the game with a two-out single in the seventh.

Seattle’s bullpen then gave Boston chances to take the game. Pinch-hitting for Enmanuel Valdez, Pablo Reyes greeted Mariners reliever Gabe Speier with a single. Unfortunately, it was first-inning deja vu all over again, as Bobby Dalbec struck out to strand two. Ryne Stanek was all over the place when he took over in the top of the eighth, issuing a leadoff walk to Reese McGuire and giving up a two-out single to Masataka Yoshida before Mariners manager Scott Servais called for Andrés Muñoz, who promptly got Trevor Story to ground out to end the penultimate frame.

Through eight, the Sox were 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position, having stranded seven. The 1-0 deficit looked more mountain than molehill.

Muñoz returned to the mound for the top of the ninth, looking for his first four-out save since 2022. He was helped along by Rackley, who called Triston Casas out on strikes, all of which were outside the zone. The Red Sox struck out 1-2-3 to complete the shutout loss.